An Interview with Late Night Beers/Song Premiere, “Broke An Arrow”
by Aaron Mook

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of interviewing one of the best group of guys I’ve heard all year- Late Night Beers. If you have yet to hear their debut EP, Waking, you can find my review of it here at Fastest Kid in School and on Absolutepunk. Above is a brand new single, “Broke An Arrow”, premiering exclusively on FKIS that’s sure to be a hit with fans the band, as well as The Smiths and American Football. Check out the interview below, stream the new single and let us know what you think!

Aaron: So just to get the boring stuff out of the way, and as general knowledge for our readers, can you give us a lowdown on who plays what in the band?

Eddie: Well I’m Eddie Cuddy, I play guitar and sing. Tyler Bormann sings and plays guitar, and Dylan Morris plays drums. I played bass on the new track, as well.

Aaron: Awesome. For anyone who hasn’t checked it out, I wrote a review for your recent release, Waking, and I obviously enjoyed it immensely (it’s one of my top three EP’s of 2013). Is Waking officially your first release, and can you give us some insight into how the songs came together?

Eddie: Waking is definitely the first release. The songs came together over a span of two years, really, and we went in knowing the outcome that we wanted but not exactly how it would turn out.

Tyler: I would play these little pieces on my acoustic guitar for Eddie over the phone, and we would sort of go from there. There’s actually a video on Youtube of the intro, “Isn’t it Pretty” and that was 20 minutes after we had written it. We would work out the songs in practice once every few weeks, sometimes even once a month depending on the circumstances with work and school.

A: Oh, wow, so were you all together in same space while recording the EP?

E: Oh yeah, we actually recorded it in one day in a friend’s apartment. aside from doing the levels the night before. Dylan was really sick, so we kind of just went in with the mentality of “We have the money, let’s do this,”, and it honestly didn’t take more than six hours. Our friend just had this small interface, and we tried to set up for recording in different rooms of the house. We got the final mixes about two weeks later.

A: How long had you been a band before this?

E: I actually remember, we had our first practice on Black Friday of 2011, because we all went to a show right after our first practice. Tyler and I have been writing songs since seventh grade, and Dillon and I played in a hardcore band together, so the songs came together really quickly. The chemistry was already there, we just ran with it.

Dylan: We would always keep in touch, whether we were all separated by school or not, and pass the idea back and forth…that’s how it went for a while.

A: So when you finally did get together and finalize the idea of playing together, did you have any idea of what you wanted to sound like? Or did you just go with the flow once you were all together?

D: Well I don’t know it’s just because I’m a drummer, but I had a tendency for heavier stuff. We all listened to different bands, and Eddie probably had the widest musical palette, so it was mostly a just go with the flow kind of situation.

T: It felt like a jam band at the beginning. We all had angsty feelings that we brought together and I’m not the best guitar player in the world, so I would listen to something and try to channel that into whatever I was playing at the time.

A: I don’t want to throw out the comparison too much, but the artists I’ve heard mentioned most in comparison are obviously Morrissey and American Football. Were there any artists that you all listened to that you would consider a large influence on the band?

E: Those were definitely two of my favorite artists, and Tyler’s a big fan as well. American Football was like the band we wanted to be in, and we’d send in each other clips of songs we loved.

T: We knew we wanted somewhat of a math-y sound, too.

D: It was weirdest for me because I was so used to playing material until your shoulders blew out, you knw? (Laughs). So I had to learn real quick.

E: We knew wanted Dylan because he’s such technical drummer.

A: So how old are the songs that make up Waking?

E: “Chiminea” and” Waking” are two of our oldest songs, and” Isn’t it Pretty” is more of what we considered an intro. Tyler and I are big fans of AFI, we love intros and transitions, especially the theatricality behind them, so I’m really happy that “Isn’t It Pretty” turned out so well.

A: Well at three songs, it’s definitely a short listen, and I think it’s effective in the fact that I as a listener was actually kind of pissed after it ended. (Laughs) Like, it just leaves the listener wanting so much more.

T: We originally planned on a six song EP, but due to money and some other boundaries, it was just best to just focus on our three favorites and put them in an order that worked. It was put together so haphazardly, because I remember wanting “Broke An Arrow” so badly on the EP, but listening now, Waking is such a cohesive listen and “Broke An Arrow” just feels like it belonged in a different chapter for us.

A: Was “Broke An Arrow” written specifically for Waking?

D: It was a song we played live before Waking was even a thing.

E: It’s gone through some major structure changes since its original inception, though. Here’s how I remember it- Tyler and I wrote it together acoustically, and then once we brought it to Dylan, it all really started to fall into place.

A: Well not to put down Waking in any way, but listening to “Broke An Arrow”, the track feels much more dynamic and has an almost completely different vibe from the EP. It’s much more upbeat, with 2-3 minutes of pure instrumentals leading it in.

T: I know exactly what you mean,.Waking is really chordy. We write in a way that, it’s really important to us that we can order our songs however we’d like throughout our set list when we play live. “Broke An Arrow” isn’t the song for Waking, and when we wanted a new single, I think it was all of our first choices.